Playoff Prospectus

World Series Preview: Cardinals vs. Red Sox

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The Cardinals and Red Sox each won their Championship Series in six games, denying us a few days of rust-or-rest narrative. Luckily, the easy copy surrounding this pseudo-rematch of the 2004 World Series is plentiful. Ignore that the teams have changed general managers, managers, and players―with the exceptions of David Ortiz and Yadier Molina―there will be revenge talk should the Cardinals win some nine years after being swept. No matter your rooting interest, let's just hope for a more competitive send-off than we got back then.

Indications are that Craig is set to return to the Cardinals lineup after missing the first two rounds. Should that come to fruition, the Cardinals will have another middle-of-the-order caliber bat to throw at Boston. Mike Matheny might not have to choose between Craig and Adams once this series returns to St. Louis, as a lot rides on how Craig feels. Otherwise, expect the Cardinals to trot out mostly the same lineup, with one possible exception being Shane Robinson over Jay against Jon Lester.

John Farrell has some tougher decisions ahead of him. He's taken to playing Jonny Gomes and Bogaerts over Daniel Nava and Middlebrooks, yet he could go back on those choices this series. The Red Sox are hurt more by the lack of a DH during the middle of the series than the Cardinals, as they'll need to choose between Ortiz and Napoli. Of course, the easy solution would be to slide Napoli to catcher, but he didn't start a game there all season, whereas Ortiz did start a few times at first base.

These lineups ranked first and second in their leagues in True Average, with Boston owning the advantage in part due to the DH.

In addition to helping the starting lineup in Boston, Craig's return could bolster the bench during the St. Louis games. Either Craig or Adams will be available as a pinch-hitter, which is an upgrade over Matheny's choices through the first two rounds. Descalso expects to see time as Freese's glove.

In these seven-game series, depth often matters less than quality. The Cardinals have the edge in that department with arguably the best and third-best starters in the series in Wainwright and Wacha, with the latter being the breakout star of the postseason. Given how the schedule works out, the Cardinals could use those two in five of the seven games. That leaves at most one start apiece for Kelly and Lynn, but it also frees them up to serve as relievers should the need arise.

The math works out the same for the Red Sox, who could use Lester and Buchholz in five of the seven games should they desire to do so. Peavy represents the litmus test for Boston fans; if he starts, then the series is going well. If he doesn't, then Farrell is likely making a last-ditch effort to fend off elimination.

Meanwhile, Farrell has deployed Uehara for more than three outs three times this October, including twice in the ALCS. He's supposedly willing to throw him out there for two innings if necessary.

Defense
If you like defense, then this isn't the series for you. Both squads ranked in the bottom 10 in park-adjusted defensive efficiency during the regular season. Boston does own a slight edge, for those keeping score.

Managers
Two relatively inexperienced managers lock horns here. Mike Matheny, now in his second season, is mostly hands-off; he lets his talented roster dictate the action. John Farrell, nearing the conclusion of his first year running Boston, is more willing to assert his control with, among other things, aggressive bullpen management. It doesn't seem as though either is a risk to lose the game for his team.

Prediction
This should be a fun series between two highly talented rosters. Here's guessing the Red Sox pull it out in six games.

PECOTA Says
PECOTA sees the Cardinals as favorites by a healthy margin.

I disagree with your projection of nava being in the starting linue. Farrell has been a gomes guy for this post season. I think Nava may get a shot at starting in St Louis because the sox will be losing a bat there because of the DH - thus farrell may be forced to play the much much better hitter(statistic wise anyways). I saw someone post some stats that gomes does better than Nava against hard throwing righities. If that stat is true - it gives the first inkling of why farrell has been going with gomes.

I'm honestly a little surprised by PECOTA's conclusion of the Cardinals being heavy favorites given that the Red Sox were consistently well ahead of the Cardinals in the Hit List rankings -- it would be helpful to get an explanation of the 'why' on something that counterintutive

Also, I noticed Allen Craig doesn't have his TAv listed. I was quickly checking the right most number in the quadruple slash line and thought "wow, that is a really high TAv" before realizing that it was actually his SLG.

Pecota heavily favors the Cards but Vegas is favoring the Red Sox. Pecota has been wrong quite a bit during the playoffs but I think Pecota has the correct favorite (although I wouldn't make them quite so big a favorite).

Oh I agree completely. I expected the Red Sox to be favored because of the public and because of the home field advantage. I still give a slight edge to the Cardinals. Of course, the fact that I'm holding a 16/1 ticket on the Cardinals to win the World Series may be slightly clouding my judgment!

Why does PECOTA like the Cardinals? Its simply appears to be awfully stubborn about accepting the reality of the season just played. David Ortiz had a mean projected TAv of .293 and put up a .324, his 90th percentile on the nose; PECOTA'S current / final projection is .297. That's something like 83% original guess, 17% reality.

The situation is even worse with pitching, where the projections seem to rely on FRA, which pretty clearly doesn't work. After two seasons with BABIPs of .197 and .203, and hence WHIPs of 0.78 and 0.64, PECOTA projected a .289 BABIP and 1.11 WHIP. After Uehara put up a .189 BABIP and 0.56 WHIP, PECOTA projects his WHIP at 1.01 (and his ERA at 2.51). It's hard to overstate how colossally wrong these rest-of-season projections were, all along.

Essentially, PECOTA is acting like the Republicans who still, on the eve of the election, thought Mitt Romney was going to win. Irony much?

A popular vote of 51% to 47%, with a margin of 5 million votes, really isn't very close.

Then when you tried to construct how Romney could get to 270 electoral votes, it was clear to an informed observer that the chance of a Republican victory was less than one in five, which beloved BP co-founder and Pecota developer Nate Silver had been saying for quite some time.